Matt Penner

All I can say is WOW!  I should have gone to this one instead of the Web Application Interface Design: The Design Process.  This is what I was looking for.

Unfortunately I missed the first 20 minutes but they showed some incredible access to GIS data and tools using REST and SOAP.

lf you are web app developer and deal with a lot of data definitely check out REST.  It’s a really neat strategy for manipulating data.  With .Net 3.5 Microsoft is building it into their data access model.  From my buddy James’ presentation on it it’s still a little immature, but it’s getting there.

Anyway, when you publish a map or other resource to ArcGIS Server it is instantly available via REST and SOAP.

So, just think.  If you need to get access to layer files or perform some sort of processing you can just use a standard url to grab it.

That’s about all I can say on REST because I only saw a bit of the last demo.  Then they switched over to SOAP.

ESRI has a longer investment in SOAP so, while it’s a slightly older technology, it’s a little more mature in its offerings.  ArcGIS Server exposes a few more abilities in their SOAP architecture, and with the built-in web resource features in Visual Studio it’s very easy to add to a web app and use.

I haven’t jumped into SOAP really so I can’t comment that much on it.  I’m jumping on the bandwagon only now and I’ve already dived into the JSON and REST side of things.  I’ll probably delve into SOAP if I can’t get ArcGIS Server’s JavaScript API to do what I want.

I asked the presenters about  security.  They said if it’s an Intranet based app then we can take full advantage of Active Directory.  He seemed to indicate it was built in to the Server and not really a function of the REST or SOAP interface at all.  Hopefully I’ll find out more about this in my ArcGIS Server sessions.

Anyway, as far as public access REST and SOAP can take advantage of token based accessibility.  It sounds like I should be able to roll that in with Microsoft’s ASP.Net Membership\Security framwork.

I don’t really relish opening ArcGIS Server directly to the public.  One of the demos used an ImageHandler.ashx handler that retrieved the image from the Image Server and streamed the result to the user.  This way the web app acted as a middle tier between the user and the server, thus allowing you to keep the server internal and manage access to the outside world.

Can’t wait to play with it!

Technorati Tags: ArcGIS Server,REST,SOAP

Sorry, but this unfortunately was a real waste of time.  I only stayed 20 minutes and that’s because I was answering work email during the presentation.

The presenter had just a few slides each with a single word such as Research, Development, Production and he explained what he does in these phases.  It was the standard fair such as user interviews during the research phase, testing on equipment that models the user’s environment during development, etc.  There were no easy bullet points and there wasn’t any new knowledge at this point.  I didn’t see anything to do with the UI, but then again to be fair, I left early.  There really wasn’t any content of note unless you were an absolute novice in developing a webapp project for a client.

It may have gotten better after I left but I ended up jumping into the Working with GIS Services – The Developer’s View workshop.  Boy this is the one I should have been in!

There are a few new features in geocoding in 9.3 but there are also several other fundamental tools I didn’t know about.  So I’ll just go over a few of the options that are pretty great.

I came into our GIS system 2 and a half years ago and it was handed to me the same way it was handed to the last guy.  I got the software, tools and shown the ESRI site with tutorials.  What this means is there are a lot of fundamental practices and features that I simply don’t know about.  It’s sometimes hard to find a better way to work in GIS because you’ve invested time in learning the current process and there is so much data online it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what works for you.

Here are a few features that I will definitely take advantage of:

• Composite Locators
  Composite Locators are simply an ordered list of locators.  For instance, we purchased parcel data from Riverside County.  We also have a street layer.  I can create a locator for each and then add both of these to a Composite Locator.  Composite locators allow me to tell ArcGIS to match against the parcel locator first and if a good enough match is not found then match against the street layer.
  When viewing the geocoded data a new field is added showing which locator was ultimately used to match against.  This is a good place to look if you start getting a lot of false positives.  If your match score threshold is too low for the parcel locator ArcGIS might be grabbing a “close enough” parcel when it could have gotten an exact match against the street layer.
  When using Reverse Geocoding the data in the tool tip is based on the current locator being used.
  • If you are using a street locator then as you move your mouse you will see the address numbers change based on the distance along the street.
  • If you are using a parcel locator there is no range.  You will see the address numbers jump from one parcel to the next as you move your mouse.
  • If you are using a composite locator the tooltip will show which locator it is using to get the data.  This is pretty sweet

Composite Locators will also come into play in point feature classes for geocoding below.

• Matching Addresses Interactively
  When you have some addresses that couldn’t be matched (most likely due to incorrect address data or incomplete reference data) you have the option to match these interactively.  During this process ArcMap will show a dialog that lets you manually process each address individually.
  Ideally you would correct your source data (the input addresses) or update your reference data (the parcel or street data).  This way you could automate your geocoding process.  Manually matching addresses can be a time consuming process, and most likely you will have to do it each time you re-geocode your addresses.  Read on to find out how to permanently save your manually matched addresses.
  However, the interactive matching tool is great for pinpointing why an address cannot be located.
  ArcGIS 9.3 offers two new ways to match addresses.  You can now reverse geocode a point, effectively telling ArcGIS, “I know where the address lies on that street.”  This associates the address with that physical location along the street. This is Picked by Address (PA is the MatchType in the underlying data).
  Conversely say you know where on the map the address is located, but it’s not necessarily along a specific street (such as a new development and you do not have streets for the area yet).  You can specify a point on the map and this is known as Picked by Point (PP).
  So the big question, now that I’ve told ArcGIS where these addresses are, how do I make it remember this on the next geocoding?
  You can save these points into a feature class.  Then create a Locator based on this feature class (a point locator).  Then add this locator to your composite locator as mentioned above.  That way ArcGIS will always find exactly where these “manually matched” addresses are located.

Unfortunately there were no demos on actually creating a locator based on a polygon.  I’ll have to play around with this but it sounded like it would be fairly easy to implement.

I’ll try and find some links to the MIT group that demoed during the plenary session.  This was outrageous.  The used 3D Analyst and literally created 3D objects for every single room on the MIT campus.  They then built a locator around these layers and allowed the user to locate a building and room as simply as they would enter an address.  Very nice!  The demo went way beyond that but that’s the extent for using locators.  I would love to develop a 3D interactive map for helping users (and possibly EMS services) to find exact locations on our campuses such as the office, a specific room, the library, etc. However I don’t have a group of students working on their senior project mapping our campus.    That’s an idea though!

Technorati Tags: Geocoding,Composite Locator,Interactive Matching